Corridors of Hogwarts
by talesfallshort
Summary: Snape doesn't die in the war. He has something else planned for the wizarding world, and he's going behind Dumbledore's back to do it.  This summary's probably going to start making sense halfway through the story:D
1. Chapter 1

The castle's corridors were empty, save for perhaps Filch's cat, Mrs. Norris, who enjoyed after-hours walks; there were no students to make meowing noises at her then. Mrs. Norris strode briskly toward Filch's office and walked into it, the door having been left wide open for her. The cat struck out with its back leg and the door creaked shut. _Clever cat._

Hermione peeped round the edge of the wall, thankful for Mrs. Norris's departure. If the cat had seen her, it would have meant a detention. Hermione clutched her purse closer to her chest and exhaled in obvious relief, only to inhale deeply again for her nose to detect a strong whiff of -

"It's an astringent, Ms. Granger,"

Hermione spun around to the familiar face of her potions master of five years. Her eyes went wide and her lower lip shook. _This was worse than Filch and Mrs. Norris, much worse..._

"Professor! No, no I wasn't -" she stammered.

"Your meaning is immaterial, Ms. Granger. It's after hours, way after hours. What's a third of the _golden__ trio _doing out of bed at _this_ _hour_?"

Realizing she still clutched her purse to her chest, Hermione relaxed her rigidly held arm and dropped the purse into the back pocket of her robes, in what she hoped was a discreet enough manner.

Snape's black eyes flickered toward her hand and then back up at her petrified face.

"Turn out your pockets, Granger, _now._" He hissed, his voice dripping with menace.

Hermione wiped her palms across her robes, blinked rapidly and looked elsewhere. She didn't know what she was doing. Was she trying to buy herself more time, or was she hoping for somebody, anybody else, to happen to be walking by, _at this time of the night_, and save her? She longed for Ron, or Harry. If only Professor Lupin still taught at Hogwar -

Her muddled thoughts were interrupted by an insistent arm reaching around her waist into the pocket at back of her robes. She did nothing to hinder it.

Snape yanked the purse out, swiftly withdrawing his arm, said item in his grasp. The corner of his mouth twitched up for that split second, in what appeared to be a simper of sorts; he seemed to revel in this most recent victory. Snape raised the purse to eye level and scrutinized it. A glint of recognition shone in his eyes and he lowered it down. When Snape spoke again, his voice was calm, but, _unless Hermione was imagining it_, seemed to quiver with stifled emotion.

"When and _where_ did you get this?"

"Professor, I -"

Snape's fist closed tightly around the purse, his knuckles white with strain. "Answer me, Ms. Granger, or you'll be serving a term's detention, _and_ suspended, from _every _single major examination under the subject I teach throughout the course of this year."

If she'd learned anything from her six years of magical schooling, it was that Severus Snape kept the threats he made, and anybody with even an ounce of brain matter had better act in accordance with his wishes or suffer the harsh punishments that would certainly befall the defiant.

"The Gryffindor common room, sir, third year!" she yelped, flustered.

Something stirred in those black orbs of his, if only for a split second.

Hermione held her breath, certain that there was another tongue-lashing coming her way, or a threat, to deduct more points from Gryffindor... Either way, she thought. But Snape simply acknowledged her response with a curt nod and then carried on to undo the knot that sealed the purse with a familiarity that stunned her. Hermione watched him with a transparent display of curiosity and surprise. _How did he know the precise steps to untie it? _Her stomach gave a terrified lurch at the same time; as soon as he undid that last loop, he would discover that she'd –

"Fifty points from Gryffindor, and be at my office six o'clock sharp. Friday. You'll be serving a detention for skulking about the corridors after hours." Snape said, as he cast a non-verbal spell that caused the contents of the now-open purse to tumble out at Hermione's feet.

Both lowered their gazes to the mess at their feet.

"Granger," Snape's drawled, "I see you've taken the liberty to rob my personal stores of my very limited supply of bezoars… and," he raised an brow, "_My_ time turner. Are these for Potter? Going on a little excursion soon, are we, hmm? Exciting? Dangerous?"

Hermione scrambled for a response to the onslaught of questions. "Pro – professor, I –"

"Oh my, the Insufferable Know-it-all – at a lost for words?" Snape said. He stared right at her, _into_ her.

_He was delving into her mind. Block him. Block him! _Hermione thought desperately_. Discipline your mind, _she repeated in her head like a mantra. _Why hadn't she sought to learn Occlumency from Harry before? _She could actually feel the barriers of her mind being torn apart, somebody in her head, that was now soft like jelly-o – flipping through memories of conversions between her, Ron and Harry – every single one.

_Snape should be pulling out now, he should be! _Hermione thought, frantically. _He's seen it all; he should be content now – _She almost heaved a sigh of relief when all of a sudden, the memory of herself snogging Ron flashed across her line of vision. _He's seeing this – Snape's seeing this! _She panicked and clenched her fists tight, wanting desperately to shut Snape out, but helpless against his ability.

Then, Snape pulled out. Hermione risked a glance up at his face. It was plastered with an expression of what could only be described as smugness, a sense of victory.

"Well, Ms. Granger, seeing as there is nothing more to discuss," he flicked his wrist as if a sign of dismissal, eyes still on Hermione. "Friday, six o'clock. Your detention." He added, before turning from her and walking off.

She watched him until he disappeared from her line of sight, round a corner. Then, she bent to retrieve the gillyweed from the floor, and, noting that the time turner was no longer there – _Snape must've taken it back_ – set off to her dorm.


	2. Chapter 2

Snape stood in his office, his back against a shelf of jars; he'd apparated there. His heart beat erratically as his thoughts pivoted around recollections of a time long past. He tilted his gaze down ever so slightly, until the object he held in his viselike grip shifted into his line of vision. After all these years, to have in his possession something that had once belonged to her -

He wanted her back so badly.

Snape placed his right hand over the purse and ran it over the fabric, appreciating the unfamiliar warmth that brew up in him as his finger tips caressed the patchy material - _Or was the material caressing him? He thought idly - _and he basked for a moment in the comfort it brought. It didn't matter that the fabric had frayed, he never thought that those hands of his - hands that had been forced to deliver countless nauseating death sentences - hands that he'd grown to despise, could bring him such a feeling of _comfort_ again. _Comfort, comfort - comfort_. That was the singular word he could think of, and comfort _was _comforting, and the numbness the feeling brought with it was good.

He wiped the moisture that had gathered out of his eyes and shut them tight, appreciating the instant darkness that befell him. He stood that way for a while, resting his aching self against the shelf of jars behind him. "Lily Evans," He murmured. Funny though, it seemed as soon as he spoke her name, she had appeared in front of him…

_They were standing in the middle of one of the corridors of Hogwarts. The corridor that overlooked the green patch of field they had so often hung out in, just chatting._

_Where they going to venture out into it again, in this dream of his?_

They were students again, and he was waiting for her to pick something up from the floor. Why he wasn't helping her with it, he didn't know. Lilywas hunched over, with her back to him. Snape considered tapping her shoulder, but something told him not to interfere. He'd wait for her to turn around. An agonizing forty seconds passed. Snape drummed his fingers against his pant legs, and stole a glance at whatever she was so busy with. An innocent, enchanted blossom lay on the ground. The petals flapped frightfully, frantically up and down, while Lily tried to scoop it up into her palms. The blossom passed through her hands like they were a ghost's. An odd iciness filled Snape's chest.

Something was wrong.

It was like she was a hologram that couldn't touch.

It was like she didn't actually exist as a physical being.

"Lily?" Snape said.

Lily spun around to face him. Her eyes were red from crying, and her hands shook. "Why can't I pick it up? Why can't I touch anything?" she blurted, eyes darting about, confusion plastered on her face now, and Snape thought his heart broke a little as he realized he couldn't do anything. He fought for words to say, reassuring, caring words. Hundreds came to mind, none sounding sincere enough.

"I'm so sorry!" he cried in desperation.

"But it's too late," she whispered, her breath light against his face. "No-no, no - it isn't -" Snape said, frantic, as he reached out to pull her to him.

Lily screamed in agony at his touch, causing him to withdraw his arm in shock. Suddenly, her face was wiped clean of expression. "You shouldn't have done that -" Lily said. Snape's eyes darted wildly about her face, as he tried to make sense of her words. "Why -" She said, voice icy, eliciting a flustered "What?" from the broken man in front of her. But all too soon, her face was disappearing, and the rest of her soon after that.

A flash of light in his eyes that made him cry out - and he was awake, and alone again.

Hermione let out a cry as she tripped over her cat, Crookshanks, and fell face first into her four-poster bed, eliciting a snarl of outrage from the cat. She gingerly patted it in apology. "Sorry, Crookshanks, just a little flustered right now… I guess," She stretched her arm over the edge of the bed and unclenched her fist, letting the stolen gillyweed tumble onto the carpet. The slimy mass landed on the soft surface with a gentle plop, wetting the fabric a little.

Hermione sucked on the tip of her index finger, the way she would a quill, and watched as the dark patch spread steadily on the carpet. "Wet," She muttered to herself, or to Crookshanks, perhaps. She really didn't know.

The scuffling of feet woke her from her slight daze.

"Ron, Harry!" She said, not all too surprised. The two had recently made a habit of sneaking into the Gryffindor girl's dormitory after hours; that being the one of the few times the trio could converse in secret. Furthermore, tonight's meeting had been scheduled. There were things in need of discussing.

Harry pulled his invisibility cloak off of Ron and himself, revealing them both to Hermione, not that she had been in need of confirmation as to who the two intruders were. "Hermione," Ron and Harry greeted in unison, both half-occupied with the task of untangling themselves from the fabric. They succeeded and Harry nimbly folded the cloak and stuffed it into his back pocket; his front occupied by his wand. As Mad-Eye always said, "Constant vigilance", and never_ ever_ to leave one's wand in one's back pocket. Harry had taken his advice rather seriously, having been through enough to understand its importance, and so had Ron and Hermione. Naturally, it soon became a force of habit.

"So, Hermione, the gillyweed? And the time turner?" Harry said; certain that their plan had came through. Ron and Harry looked expectantly at Hermione.

Hermione sat at the edge of the four-poster and shuffled her feet around. "Well, you see… it wasn't so simple –"

"You didn't get the stuff?" Harry interjected, in what seemed very much like a forced non-accusatory tone. Ron shot him a look.

"I did, but – Snape! He was patrolling the corridors." Hermione answered. "He stopped me and the time turner's gone now – well – but he didn't take the gillyweed, it's here!" she stopped and reached for the slimy mass that she'd tossed onto the carpet earlier on, raising her hand to show it to Ron and Harry. "But… he took the purse... and… and the time turner. Oh, I'm sorry!"

"It's alright," Harry, said, with a nod of approval from Ron. "We just have to try again, Hermione, and we'll do it together. _And_, we will include Snape in our calculations next time round."

"Blimey, Harry, I can'. He's always out to catch us. It's like… he's following us! To be honest… I reckon he is." Ron said.

"Yeah… It does seem like he is." Harry murmured.


End file.
